


easy now, with my heart

by SheWhoWalksUnseen



Series: forever holding hands [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Fluff and Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, References to Canon, Stanley Uris Lives, fellas is it gay to want to hold your best friend's hand, though it's not really mentioned much in this, your honor they're idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:35:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25776736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheWhoWalksUnseen/pseuds/SheWhoWalksUnseen
Summary: That was all it came down to, really. A silly, middle-school crush of a thought that embarrassed and enthralled him more than he wanted to admit.I’d let him hold my hand if he asked.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: forever holding hands [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943074
Comments: 24
Kudos: 229





	easy now, with my heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kcc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kcc/gifts).



> I gotta give credit where credit is due since this fic wouldn't exist without Levi putting this brainworm in my head. It was supposed to be 5k originally. To no one's surprise, it devolved into...well, you'll see.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this ridiculous fic because I thoroughly enjoyed writing it.
> 
> I also made a playlist for this fic [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0Zk8ZwZmhy06TEpoe7LV2v?si=lDCPCcDcRsyaHBfqrkYgZg), so if you want to check it out, go right ahead!
> 
> title from "Tightrope" by WALK THE MOON.

Eddie Kaspbrak contemplated homicide. This was a weekly occurrence by now, wrought out of a roiling combination of spite and fury that threatened to overwhelm him.

It also never lasted more than an hour by the time he reached the apartment but that was beside the point.

Today, it began like clockwork; he didn’t waste a moment as he threw open the door to the apartment and stormed toward his room with a shout of “ _Fucking Ronald_!” A resounding snicker answered his cry, but he didn’t see Richie as he grumbled his way down the hall.

He also realized Richie had forgotten to lock the door (again) and resolved to mention it later because they’d already gone through a search for an apartment in a relatively safe neighborhood, and not locking your door might as well mean hanging a neon sign outside that read _Robbery Needed! Dumbasses Here!_

That reminder would come later though; changing and relaxing for the first time in eight hours was at the top of Eddie’s mental list of priorities.

“That damn clown,” he heard Richie tsk behind him - somewhere in the kitchen, given Eddie swore he smelled tomato sauce from here. Maybe he was making the squash lasagna recipe they’d been looking at the other night. His stomach growled in anticipation. “Clowns are _so_ 1989\. Or maybe 2016. Believe it or not, but there were _more_ serial killer clowns out there a year ago. You think It’s got, like, cousins?”

Eddie left the bedroom door open as he unknotted his tie with more force than usual. “What the hell are you talking about?” he called.

“You ever hear about those clown sightings?”

“No, and I’d rather _not_ know, thanks.” Eddie shook his head and tore off the tie once he got the knot undone. He grimaced in the mirror, eyeing the wrinkles in his shirt he swore weren’t there an hour ago. “And I’m not talking about the McDonald’s guy. I’m talking about the dickwipe who sits across the way from me at work.”

“Well, that’s a shame. Your loss.”

He settled for rolling his shirt sleeves up to his elbows, huffing at the haphazard result, and hurrying back down the hall. He got to work on the buttons by his collar and tried not to jab himself in the throat with his fingernails, blunt as they were. “I swear fucking _Ronald_ steals my lunch every other day, and you know what he did today? He waltzes over to my goddamn desk to say I should take less ‘personal calls’ unless I’m on my lunch break.”

“Maybe he’s jealous he can’t get onto the Richie Tozier Hotline. You know, people have been known to throw themselves at this mouth of trash, Eduardo.”

Eddie rolled his eyes as he rounded the corner into the kitchen. Two plates had been set out on the counter already and Richie stood with his back to the doorway, doing a weird fidget-dance as he searched in the drawer for a knife to cut into the lasagna in front of him. A faded orange t-shirt and boxers shouldn’t look that good on anybody, but Richie always managed to skirt his way around Eddie’s defenses and hangups, whether he knew it or not. Eddie’s lips tugged upward at the corners as he watched how Richie’s shoulders stretched the worn cotton, the slope of his back shifting when he straightened and wiggled the knife in front of his eyes as if to say _Aha_!

What an idiot. God, he loved him.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Richie spun around at that moment and chuckled, arm lowering as he fixed his eyes on Eddie who continued to hover in the doorway, frozen in place. “Why hello there, you peeping tom.”

“Shut up,” Eddie shot back, looking away so Richie didn’t see his cheeks flush because he technically wasn’t _wrong_. “Anyway, I told him to fuck off because I know he made those shitty comments to Melissa downstairs last week - which I am _not_ going to repeat - and if he didn’t apologize to her, I’d report it to HR.”

“And did he?”

“Yeah.” Eddie paused and shrugged, lowering his hands once he was satisfied with the number of buttons he’d pulled free around his collar. “But I still reported him. Yesterday.”

Richie wolf-whistled and turned back to the lasagna. “ _Ooh_. Cold-blooded, Kaspbrak.”

“Judging by the look on his face when he left her cubicle, she told him off too, but I figured better safe than sorry.” Eddie dropped his elbows onto the counter and leaned next to Richie as he watched him cut their dinner. He usually attempted to help but Richie slapped his hands away every time and they’d broken one too many plates from dinner-related scuffles. For someone who liked to instigate fights between the two of them daily, Richie was surprisingly firm about staying tidy and calm in the kitchen. Which was only fair since the last thing Eddie cooked involved a trip to get a new microwave and toaster, neither of which he’d actually used to make the pasta he wanted to prepare.

Besides, Eddie reasoned now, his eyes dropping to Richie’s hands where several fingers were covered in tomato sauce as he cut an uneven slice for the plate closest to him, Eddie was more of an observer than a “doer” when it came to letting Richie take the reins in the kitchen. For better or for worse.

Richie gave him a smirk and Eddie’s hands clenched tight around air, too far in to grasp the side of the counter to anchor himself against the wave of _fuck, fuck, fuck_ that swept through his tired bones.

Definitely for the worse.

Eddie liked to think he wasn’t oblivious. He certainly wasn’t when it came to his feelings. He was _painfully_ aware of those, and the mental whirlwind of emotions filed in a folder whose a label simply bore _Richard fucking Tozier_ on it was the one he was positive he knew every nook and cranny of. Sure, it’d taken over thirty years and an ill-timed trip to hell on earth (“aka Derry, the Clown Killer Capital of the World,” as Richie liked declaring in the group chat every time the town got mentioned by name) and divorce and another ill-timed trip to L.A. to live with his best friend after a panic attack on the phone in his hotel room after leaving Myra.

But Eddie hadn’t survived a near-death experience and flown to the other side of the country for nothing, and while part of him recognized this deep down, Eddie didn’t think he fully understood why until the first morning in Richie’s apartment, after a long day of flights and unpacking most of his boxes. He almost stumbled into the doorframe of the kitchen when he caught sight of his best friend puttering around the stove, bedhead spectacular enough that strands at the back of his head stood straight up, his t-shirt riding up as he scratched at his stomach through the fabric, casually making banana pancakes for them both. He’d even bought the orange juice Eddie mentioned the other day, pulp and all, even though Richie teased him for a solid fifteen minutes over the phone about liking pulp because Eddie kept insisting that “damn it, it’s _healthier_ , you _heathen_ ”.

And the thing was, he’d heard Richie the night before, knew he hadn’t gone to bed until past two or three since that was about when Eddie himself fell asleep, and yet here he was. Cooking and humming something suspiciously close to _Don’t Go Breaking My Heart_ under his breath. As if he didn’t have to go to a meeting with his agent in two hours.

All Eddie could think was _Holy shit, he’s gorgeous_ , quickly followed by an emphatic _Oh, fuck._

Needless to say, the gut-wrenching realization that there _may_ have been another reason he accepted Richie’s nervous offer to stay without hesitation left Eddie speechless and it was only sheer dumb luck that allowed him to hightail it back to his room before he squawked something ungodly in response to a sleep-deprived Richie Tozier.

Not that he’d expressed this reason to anyone, including the Losers or his new therapist or, god forbid, Richie himself. And maybe he never would at this rate because the thought sent him spiraling if he dwelled on his feelings for too long, but Eddie counted anything as a win compared to the nightmare clown from hell.

Still, that didn’t mean Eddie didn’t think about it every day, every hour, every minute. Telling Richie, that is. Or anyone, to be honest, but it always came back around to Richie. He felt eerily like a child again, restraining himself from pulling metaphorical pigtails, preening at any sign of interest.

The worst part was now that he knew this steadily bulging folder of _feelings caused by Richard fucking Tozier_ existed, every sense became hyperaware of every little thing Richie did and said. Every nudge, every poke, every dumb joke, every crinkle around his eyes when he smiled - Eddie knew they existed but now he _knew_ them, found himself gawking at them at any opportunity and trying not to get caught. If that made any sense.

He was beginning to sound like Ben waxing poetic about Bev.

As if on cue, Richie dropped a slice of lasagna onto the second plate and sucked the sauce off of the tip of his thumb. And then the _fucker_ had the _nerve_ to grin down at Eddie around it.

 _I will throttle you_ , Eddie thought, eyes narrowing. He refused to acknowledge that he was blushing again. _Try me, I dare you. Bigfoot-looking motherfucker with your broad shoulders. And massive hands._

That only succeeded in hurtling him down _another_ rabbit hole because he’d never noticed - _really_ noticed - until now but, Richie’s hands could cover his own easily. His fingers were wider and smoother than Eddie’s, always in motion and firmer then they looked. Richie threw out his back when he tried, but he once managed to lift Eddie off his feet and almost over his shoulder. They both laughed it off later after Eddie shouted at him and lectured him for attempting something that could’ve gotten him seriously injured, and yet he still remembered how strangely reassuring Richie’s hands felt on his hips, never budging even as his arms shook and he swayed in place.

“Ronald McDonald on the mind?” Richie asked now. Eddie blinked at him dumbly.

“I - what?”

“The clown? The coworker?” He raised an eyebrow, thumb slipping from his mouth. “You zoning out there, Eds?”

“Oh. Oh, I’m - don’t call me that.” Eddie cleared his throat and leaned back on his elbows. “Do you need help with the, you know…” He nodded at the lasagna, hoping he didn’t look like a grown man who had forgotten how to use his goddamn words.

“Nah, we’re almost good to go here.” Richie nudged the plate with the largest slice closer to Eddie and his heart swelled at the little gesture. It didn’t help that Richie’s amused grin verged on something he dared call fond. Eddie pulled the plate the rest of the way to him, eyes darting between that grin and the lasagna. He settled on staring at the squash lasagna - a much safer view, and far less heartache-inducing.

He must’ve stared for too long, though, because Richie snorted as he put aside the knife and propped himself up on his own elbows beside Eddie. “It’s not poisoned, you know.”

“I didn’t think it was. You’d be the world’s shittiest serial killer announcing that, anyway.”

A guffaw left Richie and, ever the moth drawn to the flame time and time again, Eddie looked up in time to catch it, a full head-thrown back laugh with eyes glittering and cheeks stretched wide with the force of his easy grin. Eddie almost stabbed himself with his own fork just watching him. “Oh, yeah, that’s me. A regular Ted Bundy or - who’s the latest serial killer everyone’s jazzed about lately?”

“I don’t think anyone’s ‘jazzed’ about serial killers. Who even says ‘jazzed’ anymore, are you fucking eighty?”

“Oh, Eddie my love - ”

“ _Not_ my name.”

“You’d be surprised what people on the internet think about anything and everything. Besides, that’s rich coming from a man who told me the other day we should buy throw pillows from the elderly woman down the hall because they ‘fit the decor’ or ‘aesthetic’ or whatever you were going for,” Richie pointed out, still laughing.

“Gladys has an excess of pillows! Besides, they’re nice, and if her sons aren’t coming over anymore - ”

“Gee, I wonder why.”

“I’ll tell her you said that,” Eddie threatened. His words were softened by his irritable, rather messy bite of squash lasagna and he could see Richie’s expression twitch in a half-hearted effort not to poke fun.

“Good luck with that. She told me yesterday I was her favorite.”

“She did _not_ , that was _me_ , fuckwit.”

Richie shrugged. “Hmm, nope. I think I’d remember that. I believe she said, ‘Richard dear, your strong arms and your big, _beautiful_ \- ’”

“ _Fuck you_ and do _not_ finish that sentence,” Eddie snapped, his fork tapping idly in between bites.

“Only if you ask nicely.”

Richie let out a screech as Eddie shoved him hard, retaliating with a pinch to the soft flesh of his forearm and the rest of dinner became a familiar blur of catfights and shouting to watch the plates and lasagna, which they both really should’ve seen coming. Or, maybe they did, falling into their usual roles without care.

Eddie certainly didn’t care much, even if he did wind up having to clean squash lasagna off the side of several cabinets half an hour later.

***

That was really where the problem began, if he had to pinpoint it like some cliche crime show detective mapping clues out on a corkboard of crisscrossing strings and pushpins.

Not his feelings (see nearly a year previous’ realization above). Again, Eddie was well-acquainted with the depth of his feelings, even when it came down to simple thoughts of _I never knew he tapped out drumbeats on the couch cushions while watching TV_ or _Dumb motherfucker doesn’t clean his glasses and yet he looks like a million fucking bucks, how is this fair?_

No, the problem was that _yes_ , Eddie collected each new observation eagerly, clutched them close to his heart, and hoarded every last detail for him and him alone - and somehow he kept circling back around to the moment in the kitchen. Well, _multiple_ moments, if he wanted to uphold any sense of accuracy here.

The first morning in the kitchen, watching Richie hum and sleepily make pancakes.

Two months later, shoulders knocking, unable to keep himself from inching closer as Eddie outlined the length of Richie’s knuckles with his eyes alone, over his fingers, down his palm, a lazy motion that made him smile, drunk off of curiosity.

The other night, a thumb caught between tomato-stained, reddened lips, and Eddie’s heart pounding with the thought of _I’d let him hold my hand if he asked._

That was all it came down to, really. A silly, middle-school crush of a thought that embarrassed and enthralled him more than he wanted to admit.

_I’d let him hold my hand if he asked._

Granted, that wasn’t the only thought Eddie’d ever had about Richie - and maybe it wasn’t the most embarrassing in the grand scheme of things after all - but for some reason, he couldn’t stop thinking about the very concept. If anything, it was all the more baffling that Eddie was the one hung up on tactility because Richie was the toucher, the feeler, always ruffling hair, poking and prodding his way until you couldn’t help but poke back.

There was nothing special about Richie’s hands. It wasn’t some kink or sexual fascination; he didn’t even want to unpack _that_ on top of everything else. Eddie just _wanted_ with a capital W, the way he did with everything.

His mother used to tell him his heart was too big for his body, that one day it would kill him unless he was careful. That had turned out to be bullshit, but he wondered if she’d been right, in a way, because he kept wanting and his heart _throbbed_ from the effort, so full it might burst under Richie’s gaze if he didn’t pace himself. Eddie thought he understood the obsession couples had with hand-holding in public now because every time he and Richie so much as went to the grocery store to grab fresh fruit, all he could do was war with the urge to snatch Richie’s hand and never let go, paparazzi and PDA be damned.

And maybe that was the core of the problem. Eddie had held hands before, not just with his wife but his friends and his mother, and it wasn’t a novel idea on its own. He'd held Richie's hand when he was a boy, and hadn't batted an eye otherwise. In fact, the idea of holding a sweaty, clammy hand made him want to shudder and incited a much-younger Eddie to scream lectures about sanitary hand-washing habits in the back of his mind against his will. All the hands he’d held felt unremarkable or overbearing or just _there_ , whether they assisted in pulling him along to appointments and hospital visits, restricting his movement and escape, or stayed chaste and loose in public, kept polite for appearances but never caring about the actual action.

 _That_ memory was truly laughable because the irony was, Eddie never cared either because there was nothing to care _about_. It was a _hand._ He floated by for decades on indifference and thus he never let himself openly want or care. What was the point in wanting, Eddie had tried to reason with himself, if he was already getting by without?

Yet all he craved now when his eyes strayed to Richie’s tapping fingers on the couch cushions or swinging arms as they set off searching the dairy aisle at the grocery store was to reach over and lace their hands together.

He wanted Richie to cover his hand with his own because he knew he would never smother Eddie; he might fidget and squirm but Richie was one of the gentlest people he knew, his grip steadying but never stifling. He wanted to feel Richie’s fingers tracing his knuckles, drawing patterns across his skin. He wanted to press kisses to each of Richie’s fingertips, to kiss gratitude, affection, and unfettered love into every crease and line on his palms.

Eddie had never been good at restraining himself, pretending to be something he wasn’t, pretending not to care, and he puzzled over whether it was the close encounter with It that dislodged this cresting wave of longing or if the magnitude of his feelings were simply dwarfed underneath the terror that came with these feelings existing at all.

He was leaning toward the latter.

Anyway.

It was a miracle Richie didn’t catch onto Eddie’s spiraling, especially when they were in public, from eating out to walking along the boardwalk to meeting up with one of the Losers for brunch. He thought he was fairly blatant about his staring, and Richie caught him a couple of times and somehow managed to accept Eddie’s clumsy replies as him zoning out or lack of sleep. At one point, Eddie reached for his hand in a fucking Target of all places and had to brush it off as leaning over Richie’s enormous forehead to grab something off the shelf.

He wound up grabbing a bottle of coconut hand cream. If not for Richie’s teasing about it, the embarrassment of this irony might have swallowed him whole there and then.

It wasn’t that he wanted Richie to know the depth of his feelings. Richie loved Eddie - not in the same shape and way Eddie loved him, but the warmth and fondness were undeniably there nonetheless, and that was enough. His friendship was enough.

But part of Eddie mused that _wouldn’t it be nice to show him? Wouldn’t it be nice to return that love?_ Richie was the tactile one, the one who reached first to comfort or reassure. Hell, he’d offered his apartment to Eddie to share and Eddie’d lived there for nearly a year to - what? Stare? Gripe about his feelings in silence because it was easier?

Maybe Eddie didn't want to pretend not to care anymore.

Richie didn’t need to know everything. He didn’t need to know at _all_ \- Eddie was no stranger to keeping secrets. But touch was Richie’s way of showing affection, a love language even if it wasn’t the same kind of love Eddie felt, and fuck it all, maybe Eddie wanted to return that love with every ounce of adoration left in him.

***

The first attempt went badly. There was no sugarcoating it, he definitely fucked up.

On their weekend trip to the grocery store, one week exactly since the squash lasagna incident, Eddie watched Richie try and sneak cereal into their shopping cart. He glared at Richie every time he turned back to see Richie's hands behind his back or him unsubtly wriggling a box of Lucky Charms off the shelf next to them. Coupled with the drizzle outside they’d walked through to get here and the discomfort of the A/C chilling his wet skin, Eddie wasn’t in the mood for wasting time when they could get home and change if they hurried.

So when Richie shot him an innocent smile for the tenth time, his first instinct was to grab his hand. He didn't quite understand why _then_ it seemed like a good idea, just that he watched Richie raise his hands in surrender, eyes wide, the epitome of getting caught red-handed, and he grumbled through the fondness bubbling in his chest and reached out to take Richie's hand.

Richie was faster than Eddie and darted backward, perhaps thinking Eddie was going to pinch him and incite another argument in front of the ten-year-old girl down the aisle. Eddie didn't have time to reel back before he slipped on the water dripping off them both and fell to one knee on the tile.

Hard.

He barely felt the initial rush of pain, so stunned he was by the immediate dismay on Richie's face and how he knocked at least two Lucky Charm boxes off the shelf in his haste to kneel beside Eddie. “ _Shit, shit_ \- are you okay? Eddie?”

“I'm fine,” he said, though the ache in his knees disagreed. He might've pulled something. He made to grab the shelf closest to pull himself to his feet but one tug made him grunt, his vision whiting out for an instant. “Or maybe not, _fuck me_.”

“Later,” Richie shot back on instinct, and he winced when Eddie gave him a _look_. “Right. Shutting up, just - what do you need?”

Eddie let his other knee fall flat onto the tile and shut his eyes, breathed out through his nose. “Honestly?”

“Yeah, honestly.”

“Ice would be good,” he grabbed Richie's arm before he could run off, which looked like a serious possibility given how much he was itching to stand, hands scratching and twitching as if he wanted to reach for Eddie. “But can I just...sit here for a minute?”

“On the dirty grocery store floor?”

Eddie tried not to shudder as a memory of his mother's squawking over how _dirty, you have no idea how dirty these places are, Eddie-bear, be careful_ nagged at the forefront of his mind. “Yes.”

“Of course.” Richie sat down and Eddie didn't register that that was his cue to do the same until Richie nodded to the floor.

“I mean - I can do it if we get back to the apartment, but I - ”

“Eds, unless they come to kick out two grown men relaxing in the cereal aisle in the next ten minutes, I think you're good,” Richie said, a smile tugging at his mouth. "I'll fight off the cashier for your honor, Sir Knees-a-Lot.”

“That nickname doesn't even make sense.”

 _“Eddie_.”

Eddie made a show of sighing but he sat down next to Richie, unable to hold back a smile himself when Richie patted his wet shoulder. The ten-year-old girl down the aisle glanced at the two of them with a frown but she didn't run over to her mother or tell them off so he counted it as a win.

Maybe it was selfish of him to want to rest a while but the last thing he wanted to do right now was walk when his knee felt like it'd been shoved in a blender.

Stupid. He should've seen the water and thought before he acted.

Still, he conceded as Richie pointed out the maze on the back of the Lucky Charms box closest to them, the first attempt didn't go quite so bad. Even if he might have to watch his knee and avoid running for a few days. It at least earned him an elbow resting on his shoulder for a good minute and hands firm yet tender on his arms to help him up when the workers did indeed come to kick them out.

He blamed his lack of impulse control for allowing Richie to buy all three of the Lucky Charms boxes they “damaged”.

***

Whoever came up with the phrase “second time's the charm” was an idiot. Eddie was also an idiot for believing in aforementioned phrase.

To be fair, he tried to plan out his second attempt a little better and not jump Richie like the last time in the grocery store. Richie corraled him into staying on the couch the first day after he fucked up his knee, though he was wise enough to back off when Eddie started snapping back and fidgeting after a day of sitting around and doing nothing. Thank goodness it was a Sunday and he didn't have to go in for work. Sitting around wasn't all that bad, but the last thing Eddie wanted was to get bored or feel overwhelmed; being reminded of those “sick days” he had to take under his mother's fussing and griping was humiliating. So when Richie didn't push after Eddie insisted on at least getting up the second day after, he couldn't help but feel grateful.

That being said, sitting around also gave him an idea. Hence, “second time's the charm” and hence Eddie's idiocy.

In retrospect, it was a terrible idea. Eddie should've guessed that from the moment it burrowed its way into his brain but he thought it would be a nice attempt at the time. After all, lack of subtlety wasn't his strong suit so he assumed going for a less outright approach would be best.

When Richie walked into the apartment two hours later after a meeting for his new Netflix special, Eddie was in the process of trying to salvage the last of the pasta before it burned. He probably looked crazy, with thyme stuck to the back of his hand, olive oil slicking his hands up to his wrists and a pot of half-burned pasta held close to his chest. Judging by the look Richie gave him, jaw dropped as he leaned against the doorframe to the kitchen, it made a hilarious sight.

“Don't even say it,” Eddie warned.

“I - I wasn't going to say anything,” Richie replied, his eyes already glittering with delight.

“Do _not_.”

“Might want to put that pot down, Eds.”

“That's not my name, fuck you, I - _shit_ ,” he swore louder as he set the pot gently onto the counter and moved to turn off the stove. "Stop distracting me."

“I'm _distracting_ you?”

“Yes,” Eddie shot back. He didn't dare look at Richie's face now but he heard the barely stifled laughter anyway. “Seriously, fuck you. I'm trying to do shit here.”

“Sorry that my gorgeous mug is _distracting_ you, baby.” Eddie nearly burned himself - would be the second time that night, unfortunately - and he could feel his cheeks burn, could predict the tomato-based jokes if he turned around right now. “That's certainly a new one. 'Trashmouth Blinds a Thousand Faces'.”

“Blinds them with what? Those terrible shirts they can definitely see from Mars?”

Richie laughed louder. “What a burn. You know you love those colorful babies.”

Eddie glanced behind him to send Richie an unimpressed look. The one he currently wore was decked out with watermelons and probably could blind someone with how obnoxiously yellow it was. Not the most offensive contender but _still_.

“Are you going to stand there all night and gawk?”

Richie tilted his head. “Wasn't sure if I'd be shooed out of the kitchen. What were you even trying to make? And why isn't the fire department on speed dial?”

“They already are, my phone's over - _don't laugh_ , fuck you!” Richie kept laughing even as Eddie shoved him, and Richie moved to check on the pot while Eddie focused turning off the stove. “For your information, it was supposed to be pasta. I think it said butternut squash pasta? I'd have to check.”

“What brought this on?”

“Hmm?”

“You never cook.” Another glance over his shoulder revealed Richie frowning his direction. Eddie turned away, pretending to be busy inspecting the stove for any damage. “What's with all the hustle and bustle? You declared you were through after last time.”

“Maybe I just wanted to cook,” Eddie mumbled.

“I'm not - I didn't say there was anything wrong with that.” Richie's tone softened. “It's just... It's a weeknight, so you came home from work early, and you've been weird since Sunday. What's up, Eds?”

Eddie gnawed on his lower lip for a moment, frustration clawing its way through his gut, a beast on the prowl. “I wanted to do something nice.”

“Something nice?”

“You know. Cook or - help out, I don't know.” He turned around, resting his hip against the cabinets next to the stove as he faced a bewildered Richie. “I felt a little useless after the other day.”

“Hey, that wasn't your fault. Everyone trips.” Richie spread his hands. “No harm, no foul. I mean, you've seen how many times I trip over shit in our own apartment.”

 _Our own_. He refused to blush, he refused. It wasn't like he didn't know the apartment was technically theirs now, after a year of living in L.A.

Even still the possessiveness of _our own_ caught him off-guard. So long and so little time spent with Richie in his life, his new life where he was far happier and surrounded by friends, his family of choice.

“Well. Yes.” Eddie cleared his throat. “I'm not upset about that. I just...” What was the non-fucked way of saying _I wanted to make you dinner for once and see you smile because it renders me as useless as a dead fish every time, and maybe I want to hold your hand while we're at it?_

Yeah, this was a bad idea.

As if sensing Eddie's mounting irritation with himself, Richie walked over and nudged his side. “Lucky for you, Chef Tozier is in the house. Come on, pull up that recipe.”

“You shouldn't have to make dinner after my mess, Rich.”

Richie scoffed. “Who said I'm making it alone? This is a once-in-a-lifetime cooking class, Eduardo. So come on. What're we doing first?”

Eddie hesitated but Richie kept nudging him so he moved to grab his phone, calling a warning about the stove still being hot behind him. And if the second batch of butternut squash pasta turned out better than he imagined, he considered it a job well done regardless of his solo failed effort.

It was definitely better than inflicting an injured knee upon himself for no reason, at any rate. He even earned plenty of smiles for his endeavors in the kitchen, which were deemed less life-threatening than usual by Richie.

***

It became a weird game after that, a test of endurance and patience of sorts that confused Richie endlessly while Eddie tried to come up with ways to convey his feelings and/or hold his hand. He tried to be subtle; he tried not giving a fuck about subtlety; he even attempted to grab Richie's hand in public again, but then Bill texted about some dickhead reporter writing an article about his and Audra's monthly post-divorce brunch and paranoia and anxiety made him prickly the rest of the day so he gave up.

Richie's hands were on his mind constantly, but showing Richie he was loved was more important, whether it involved touch or not. They both were terrible when it came to using their words so this much Eddie could do. He returned nudges and pokes and little brushes of knees and elbows and fingertips as much as he could. Eddie _wanted_ and _wanted_ but he wanted Richie's happiness more.

He was never good at prioritizing his wants and needs; what was the difference? He wanted Richie, he needed Richie in his life. He craved Richie's touch more than air; he needed Richie to know his love _through_ touch, even if it killed him.

The swell of emotion coursing through him when he listened to Richie practice his material in his room or the sleepy way he snuffled into Eddie's chest when he fell asleep too early during movie night stole his breath every time. Could Richie feel the writhing fervor within him, the fuzziness and warmth that tickled his bones and lifted him off his feet in every passing glance?

If he did, he never gave any indication. Richie wore his heart on his sleeve but he was also the cagiest motherfucker Eddie'd ever met. He'd rather eat his own heart than admit anything that could concern someone, especially one of the Losers.

Richie certainly seemed concerned himself over Eddie's newfound alacrity to cook and his staring (when he _caught_ Eddie doing so, which happened one out of every ten times he actually zoned out gaping at his hands, his shoulders, his mouth, _everything_ ). Once, he cornered Eddie before he left for work and asked if he'd been having nightmares again.

Eddie recoiled, his hand snapping back to his side from where he'd been reaching for his briefcase by the door. “What? No, not that I - I mean, I don't think I have. Shit. Did I wake you up again?” His chest tightened at the thought of Richie hearing him cry out in the middle of the night; it'd been a good few weeks since his last nightmare, he hoped he'd been doing better. “I'm sorry, Rich, I didn't - ”

“Whoa, whoa, no. No, I haven't heard - you didn't wake me.” Richie held out his hands to placate Eddie, crossing the distance between them to gaze down into his dark, worried eyes. “Sorry, I haven't heard anything. I promise. I just... You seemed _off_ lately. I wondered if something was wrong.”

“Oh.” Eddie swallowed hard. The knot began to untangle itself in his chest, loosening little by little. “I'm fine. I _am_ ,” he assured Richie when that earned him a suspicious look. “Nothing's wrong. I'd tell you if something was. You know that, right?”

It felt like a low blow, like he was flaunting his willingness toward sharing that vulnerable part of himself when Richie still had nightmares and refused to let Eddie enter his room some nights, even though they shared a wall and he could hear every broken sob crystal clear. He saw Richie's expression stutter, reworking each feature into a facsimile of his best friend's usual smile. Eddie's heart curled in on itself at the sight.

“Of course, Eds.” Richie patted his shoulder and Eddie couldn't even relish in the brief touch, the flicker of heat he felt through his favorite suit. "You going to be back in time for movie night?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I will.” He felt lost, adrift by the coatrack, in danger of being swept out the door in a riptide. “Did you, um, look into those options I sent you? For dinner?”

Richie pouted. “And here I thought you'd give in and let me make kettle corn again.”

“Kettle corn isn't a healthy meal, and we're not having it for dinner!”

“That isn't what you said last week when you gorged yourself on cookie dough ice cream on the couch, mister.”

 _“You_ gave me that, you enabler, and I was _injured_!” Eddie reminded him.

“Hmm, doesn't ring a bell."

“You _handed me the spoon_ \- ”

“Well,” Richie cried, a laugh twisting around his words as he scooped up Eddie's briefcase and spun Eddie toward the door, “would you look at the time! Better get a headstart on that L.A. traffic, honeybunch!”

“This discussion isn't over!” Eddie yelled behind him, rolling his eyes even as he accepted the briefcase and allowed Richie to shove him out the door like a parent ushering a toddler on their way to their first day of kindergarten.

After that, however, he did try to take care to avoid alarming Richie with his odd behavior. This whole ordeal was becoming more and more ridiculous to maintain, especially when Richie didn't even realize they _were_ playing some strange game with flimsy rules Eddie couldn't uphold.

Telling any of the others was out of the question too. He nearly called Bev after the night he tried to cook the butternut squash pasta, but he figured it was best not to burden her with more stress. What with her ongoing divorce (yeah, they were all fucking _sick_ of that piece of shit but at least Bev claimed they were _finally_ close to wrapping things up) and her calls every other week about her _own_ worries about Ben and whether they were moving too fast (which he was sworn to secrecy to never repeat, not that he could talk with the whole “in love with my best friend slash roommate” situation), it seemed silly to call her up to hear, again, that _yes, you ought to tell him, even if things change, Eddie._

Ben would only encourage him as well, and no offense to Ben, but he couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it. Excluding his love for Bev, of course, but even that was the world's most obvious skeleton in the closet. Mike would be just as enthusiastic, though perhaps more patient with Eddie's ranting.

That left Bill and Stan as options - and a possibility of Patty, but she'd be just as bad as Bev about encouraging him. Considering Bill was the least romantic person Eddie'd ever met (he got his now-ex-wife his own book for Valentine's Day one year; granted, he was drunk at the time of purchasing said book but _still_ ) and Stan would refute every idea with _why don't you just tell him, then_...

Yeah, no.

And it fucking figured that the one person he desperately wanted to talk to about his feelings was the one he could _not_ talk to about his feelings. Even when he teased him about crushes in school, all of which he made up so people would stop bugging him about his lack of interest in girls, Richie always made a point to listen to his frustration. He still tried now to get Eddie to “buck up” and go after a potential date when they went out, but he _listened._

 _If Richie loved me instead of the other way around,_ Eddie grumbled to himself, _he'd have told me within the week and solved all my fucking problems for me._ Then the thought of Richie loving him like _that_ made his lungs constrict and he had to go to the bathroom to stave off a panic attack.

He really needed a better solution outside of flipflopping between elaborate romantic gestures and grabbing Richie's hand in public at the speed of light with no explanation and never letting go, appealing as both sounded.

***

Ever since Eddie got the green light from his doctor after his return to New York, he made a point of running every morning, whether it be before work or at eight in the morning on a Saturday. His lungs ached if he pushed himself too hard, and more often he wound up pausing by a bench or water fountain to catch his breath in the middle of a run, but even the pain buzzed in Eddie’s veins, a welcome keepsake of the worst experience of his life that proved he was alive. No fucked-up clown could take that away from him.

Mike told him once in the Bangor hospital, when Eddie was finally coherent and awake, that the first time Eddie woke up after surgery, he spent a few moments blinking blearily up at the Losers when they tried to get him to speak before he burst out laughing and didn’t stop until the nurses came hurrying in. He didn’t remember being sedated after that, but Eddie clung to that missing memory the same way he did all the still-trickling-in memories from the years he’d lost. Painful as it was to run or twist his body in certain directions anymore, he liked the reminder that that Eddie existed, the same one who laughed so hard he cried in the face of his stunned friends, so relieved he couldn’t help himself. That Eddie took the fence post from Bev with little hesitation, absorbed Richie’s whispered words of bravery like a sponge, and didn’t look back.

He wondered sometimes if that version of him would’ve thrived in the twenty-seven years between his childhood and now, or if he really had gotten so good at ignoring any inkling of courage deep down that he’d convinced himself he didn’t have it in him.

Running helped, though. Eddie liked running, had loved it since he was a boy. He was always one of the fastest among his friends even if he knew it wasn’t supposed about speed in the end. Unless they were racing, which he came close to winning most of the time.

His first week in L.A. brought mornings where he caught Richie snoring on the worn-down sofa in the living room when Eddie returned from his runs, two cups of coffee on the table by his feet, waiting up to check up on Eddie but never pushing once Eddie gave a look to change the subject. Richie, surprisingly, seemed more worried about Eddie’s injuries than Eddie felt while looking at the garish scars in the mirror. He never made him feel uncomfortable with his thinly-veiled concern, but Eddie spotted him staring a lot the first few months, and even now and then when Eddie took off his shirt and he clearly wasn’t expecting it.

He guessed it was lingering guilt he watched hit Richie like a freight train, eyes widening before it usually sent him stammering and scurrying out of the room. They’d talked about the clown a few times since Derry, and while Richie never said it out loud, he went taut as a bowstring every time Eddie attempted to bring up getting stabbed. Eventually, they just stopped talking about it outside of poor jokes and cautious references to things they’d forgotten about from their childhood. Eddie hated pushing Richie anymore than Richie hated pushing Eddie on the subject, so when he brought up a walk to the pier one morning after Eddie got back from a run, he couldn’t help but give in after spying the familiar uneasy storm cloud hanging over his brow.

That was one thing Eddie didn’t miss about New York - he could walk to the beach whenever he wanted without having to fight his way through crowds. Richie lived within a few blocks of the nearest boardwalk and while they didn’t go to the beach often unless one of the Losers (typically Bev or Mike) wanted to visit and take a trip to the beach, he liked the knowledge that he _could_ go, if he wanted.

There were only a few families out and about that morning, and Eddie found himself watching them as they stopped to sit on a wooden bench by the end of the pier. An elderly couple beamed at one another a few feet away, arms linked, and he was again reminded of the hand twitching on his best friend’s thigh, so close and yet not close enough.

“You know,” Richie said, drawing out the last word as he rolled his head to the side, either not noticing or not caring how Eddie snapped his own head up far too fast to meet Richie’s eyes, “a little birdie told me they’re flying into town next month. Flying south for the winter, if you catch my drift there.”

“Let me guess: their names start with Stan and Patty.”

Richie gasped, one hand smacking his lime-green button-up as the other swatted Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie did his best not to smile even as Richie continued to gasp, the sounds growing more dramatic and high-pitched when he refused to meet his gaze. “Eds! You never told me you were psychic!”

“Stan texted me last night to let me know, idiot. Also because, and I quote, ‘Richie will want to meet us at the airport with a dumb banner with a dick joke on it and you can’t let him’.”

Richie flung his head back, knocking it against the wood of the bench to groan. “Well, that’s no fun.”

“And you called _me_ a psychic. He's got you down pat.”

“Listen, sometimes a man’s gotta bring the platonic love of his life a banner to show him he loves him, Eddie dear. And sometimes he’s gotta do it in a crowded LAX airport.”

“So it has nothing to do with the fact that he also mentioned Patty wants them to move out to L.A.?”

The storm cloud returned, darkening Richie's whole face. The grin he gave Eddie was hollow, worse than the thin, polite smiles he wore in interviews, the ones that screamed _I'd rather be anywhere else_. “He told you that, huh.”

“I _did_ ask why they were coming and staying for a whole two weeks. It's not like we have a guest bedroom.” Eddie leaned back and tilted his head as he watched Richie's expression continue to shutter, battening down the hatches against a storm he couldn't see. “This is a good thing, though. Right?”

Again with the false smile, brighter this time, less stretched and forced. “Yeah, of course. It's not like we've been telling Stan the Man to hop on a flight out here since everyone else bit the bullet and did it months ago. Well, not Mike, I guess. But he still stays with Bill every other month, you know!”

“Yeah... What's with the gloomy face, then?”

“Nothing!" Richie grimaced at the same time Eddie's eyebrows leaped to his forehead in disbelief. "Nothing's up. Seriously, man.”

“Did you forget that I know you? I can _see_ your face right now.” He huffed and tried to gentle his tone when Richie's brow furrowed further. “What's up? Really?”

Richie didn't say anything for a good minute. A quiet Richie was usually a troubling thing, but Eddie could see he needed a moment or two, to collect himself or work up to whatever he wanted to say, so he kept silent, eyes following the length of the horizon and basking in the peace of the early morning.

Or maybe he wouldn't say anything at all, he mused. This was the point where one of them charted a new course in the conversation and they forgot or elected to pretend to forget the previous discussion.

Richie sighed, one hand adjusting his glasses as Eddie watched him out of the corner of his eye. “It's nothing. I mean,” he cut in quickly, seeing Eddie roll his eyes, “it's - it's not, I suppose, but. Remember when we saw Stan again? After Derry the second time.”

“Yeah, of course.” It'd been that first week Eddie moved out to L.A., the first Losers reunion since Derry, and Stan stunned them all by not only showing up but bringing Patty too. Bill almost tackled Stan in a hug and the rest of them had taken it as permission to join in. They'd gotten thrown out of the restaurant and relocated to a fucking Denny's.

It was one of the best days of his life, even when Richie dared Eddie to order the grossest burger he'd ever seen off the menu and he and Ben spent the next twenty minutes trying to stop Richie from downing sugar packets at the table.

“I asked him then to come out here," Richie said slowly. “Not as, like, a joke. For real.”

“Oh.”

“Obviously he said no.” Richie's mouth twisted. “Which I expected, and that was fine. But... Did he say why he wanted to move when he texted?”

“No, just that Patty convinced him.”

Richie nodded. He didn't look shocked. “That's part of it. He mentioned something about being brave and...” Another sigh, quieter, reverberated in the small space between them. “I dunno, it's his whole life he's leaving behind. He's got an actual house and a job and - and it feels right, but what if he hates it here?”

“This is also Stan we're talking about,” Eddie said. “He might hate it, yeah. But all of us moved here on our own time, it was our own choice. He can make a new life if he wants.”

“Well, yeah. He deserves it, of course, he can. I just don't want to pressure him to come on out here for no reason or because he thinks he has to. That's - I wouldn't want to do that to anybody. I don't know.”

Richie's floundering, his lips pursed as he fought to find the words he was looking for, ignited a new thought in Eddie's mind and his blood ran cold. “Is this really just about Stan? Is this some elaborate way for you to tell me to move out or something?”

“What?” Richie's eyes met his, startled. “No! Fuck, no, that's not - I didn't mean it like that.”

“Because you're describing a situation that sounds a little fucking familiar here. Not only for me but - ”

“I didn't mean it like that,” Richie repeated earnestly, running a hand through his hair. “I wouldn't have offered if I didn't mean it, Eddie. It's been - having you here's been great. Really.”

“You sure?”

“Of course.” He didn't hesitate. “I just... You don't need to hang around for me just because I asked.”

Eddie's eyes narrowed. “I'm 'hanging around' because you're my best friend and I like living with you. _Dick_.”

“That's my name, don't wear it out,” Richie replied, his voice low as he squirmed under Eddie's gaze. Now he was back to avoiding eye contact, seemingly fixated on the sprawling waves of the ocean. Sunlight haloed Richie's sweaty curls, highlighting them with red-gold when he turned his head away. Eddie was tempted to reach out and muss them up like Richie always did when he was a kid. Younger Eddie had yelled and snapped every time he'd been on the receiving end, equal measures pleased and irritated by the attention, but maybe Richie wouldn't mind.

Instead, Eddie sidled closer to Richie’s side. Their knees brushed and sparked electricity up Eddie’s spine as he let them press against each other. The elderly couple he'd watched earlier walked off together, still smiling at one another as they passed the bench.

“Richie. I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be,” Eddie said. That persistent smile Richie always seemed to bring out threatened to tear itself across his cheeks. “Neither would the others. Neither would Stan. Sure, he's probably moving for himself and for Patty but he misses you too, dumbass. Do you remember when we visited them two months ago and you both cried for about an hour? And he hugged you for just as long, maybe longer? You used up all their fucking Kleenex and Ben volunteered to run out and get more.”

“Yeah, yeah, yuck it up, asshole. I get it, Trashmouth's got feelings.”

“Does it look like I'm laughing? Rich. _Richie_.” He snuck a hand out of his lap and weaved their fingers together, taking the hand jiggling on Richie's thigh in his own.

It was an impulse decision, meant to focus Richie, hold his attention and make him understand Eddie was serious, but it backfired immediately, turning Eddie's bones to jelly, warmth flooding through his palm. He'd thought Richie's hands were broad at a glance ( _more_ than a glance) but he'd deeply underestimated the appeal of how deftly Richie could cover his hand with his own. He knew Richie ran hot but this was a wildfire he didn't dare put out, a mantra of _Richie, Richie, Richie_ crackling like embers in the back of his mind.

His fingers tightened as Richie tensed, a sharp prick of fear resonating through him that maybe he'd overstepped, maybe this was a bad idea, maybe he'd pull away. Blue eyes flew to Eddie's face, lips parted, searching for something he couldn't fathom. The resemblance to a deer in the headlights was uncanny and a hysterically giddy corner of his brain wanted to laugh.

“I'm trying to tell you,” Eddie said, and by some miracle, his voice remained steady, “that we came out here because we love you and we wanted to be near you as much as you wanted us close too. You're not the only one with feelings here.”

“Feelings,” Richie said.

“Yes.”

There was an unfamiliar glint in Richie's eyes, something wild and morose peering back at him. It spurred him to squeeze Richie's hand when the moment stretched between them for too long, just a small, firm squeeze that hopefully whispered _I'm here, I'm here._

Richie closed his eyes, a shaky breath escaping him. Eddie wanted to smooth the creases of his forehead, the crinkles around his eyes, the slight wobble at the edge of his mouth. Salt air stung Eddie's eyes as he waited with patience he never thought either of them would have possessed, but he didn't mind. It was a beautiful morning, even if he was sweating through his shirt and his fingers were close to trembling.

“I love you too,” Richie murmured, a well-aimed shotgun blast right through Eddie's heart. He didn't open his eyes but that was for the best; Eddie could hardly breathe, fighting the urge to gape at Richie, a guttural noise humming to life on the tip of his tongue that he somehow held back.

He didn't mean it like that. He didn't.

But Eddie _wanted_ -

 _Stop_ , he snapped. _Just stop._

“Yeah,” Eddie said, and if Richie heard his voice crack, he didn't show it. Eddie squeezed his hand once more and forced a smile when Richie finally met his gaze. “Should we... Um, we should head back. Yeah?”

Richie stared at Eddie, stock-still, legs no longer jiggling, fingers frozen and heavy in Eddie's grasp. Maybe the silence began to suffocate him too because he wasted little more than a few moments before nodding, setting his jaw as the metaphorical blinds shuttered over his face again. “Yeah.”

Eddie had never been so relieved to let go of Richie's hand. His fingers itched at his sides the whole walk home.

***

Everything and nothing changed. They smiled at one another when they left for work, they bickered and fought over which _Star Wars_ movie ought to be watched first, they cooked and went to lunch with friends and popped open an overpriced bottle of champagne to celebrate Bev's announcement of her divorce wrapping up next week. They spent nearly every weekend together, watching movies, going bowling and snarking in the grocery store at one another as they always did.

Richie's smile didn't meet his eyes, hadn't since the bench that day.

Eddie didn't let their fingers brush in the kitchen anymore, refused to let Richie slide past him without moving first, heart hammering, a taunting drumbeat that shook his insides and burned and burned.

He thought he fucked up before, back when grocery aisles and pasta meant more than a little touch, but the stilted air in the apartment was overwhelming. Eddie found himself spending more and more time outside, in the office, down the street and the next couple blocks over, working and running, never standing still. Richie appeared to have the same idea; he was never in the apartment on weekends unless they talked about watching something or going out to do something beforehand. Even when he was, he was skittish, avoiding eye contact and laughing too loud, uncertain in a way Eddie loathed more than the silence that permeated on a good day.

This was hell on earth. There was no kinder way of describing it. Eddie was in hell.

The worst part was that he knew what was wrong. And it wasn't Richie's fault Eddie freaked out and made things weird, scurrying home with his tail between his legs when he got what he wanted.

Because it had been what he wanted, right? An _I love you_ and handholding and a mellow ocean breeze straight out of a rom-com. It was almost too perfect to imagine otherwise.

But it wasn't real. Not the way he wanted it, not the way it would be if it _was_ real.

He wanted to give Richie all the gratitude and affection he could convey, he didn't want to magically change his mind or feelings or ruin their friendship entirely. Their friendship was more than enough, it always would be. It was enough.

That didn't mean it didn't hurt to see Richie skirt around him or hear him cry from his bedroom at night. It was maddening to watch Richie move to a chair opposite him at lunch with their friends, to feel Bev boring a hole in the side of his head and knowing everyone could _see_ something was wrong, that they weren't acting like _EddieandRichie_ because it always had been the two of them, hadn't it? Birds of a feather or...whatever.

He just.

Well.

Maybe part of him did want Richie to know. Like, _really_ know, whether it scared the shit out of them both or not. Whether he loved him too or not.

Eddie was fucking sick of being silent and passive in his own life and maybe he wanted something real.

Eight days after their walk to the pier, Eddie sat at the kitchen table and listened to the sound of Richie's footsteps padding their way down the hall. The coffee in front of him had gone cold twenty minutes ago in its neon yellow “My Mug is a Safety Hazard” mug. Richie bought it as a joke for him last Christmas.

It was the dumbest gift he'd ever gotten. He despised and adored the little eyesore.

“Morning,” Richie mumbled, stumbling into the kitchen. Eddie didn't turn around but he could picture the familiar rubbing at crusty eyes, a yawn he could almost time to the beat of his slow circle around the table toward the fridge. The fridge door opened just as leisurely, a quiet _snick_ in an equally quiet kitchen. “You're up late.”

“Called out of work. Taking a sick day.”

“You feeling alright?”

“Yep.”

“Huh. Okay.” Richie must've grabbed something from the fridge because he closed the door and he crossed Eddie's line of sight with a carton in his hand. And -

Wait.

Eddie's stomach dropped when he spied - yes, that _was_ a tiny orange on the front of the carton. The orange juice, pulp and all, Richie moaned and joked about to get a rise out of Eddie, even though he didn't stop him from putting in the shopping cart by the time they reached the register.

He hadn't even known Richie drank from it. He actually was about to drink straight from the carton, which made Eddie wrinkle his nose in horror, so maybe it wasn't such a remarkable thing.

But he still did it. He still bought it for Eddie and he _used it_ , despite all his teasing.

“You zoning out again, Spaghetti Man?” Richie asked, shooting him a look mid-sip from the carton. His eyes were half-open from the lingering haze of sleep. It was so reminiscent of his first morning in the apartment that Eddie's heart _throbbed_.

“You're an asshole and I love you so much,” he replied with all the tenderness his too-big heart could bear.

Richie choked, juice flying off his lips and Eddie yelped as he scooted backward from the rather impressive spittake, nearly spilling lukewarm coffee on himself in the process. “What the fuck? Anyone ever teach you to swallow like a normal human being?”

 _“Eddie_ ,” Richie's voice was hoarse, eyes bulging behind his lenses and glistening, probably from the coughs racking his chest still.

“I'm serious, you - hang on.” Eddie pushed back from the table and stood, moving to help Richie because anticlimactic as this was, he didn't want Richie to choke and die. “Don't move, I'll get a paper towel - ”

_“Eddie.”_

“What?”

“What do you...” Richie coughed again, and a growl that put some very unnecessary mental images in Eddie's head followed the cough, like he was as exasperated as Eddie felt. Eddie made to pull the carton away from him but Richie snatched his wrist and held on, eyes bright. “What do you mean _what_? You can't just say that and fuck off like - ”

“Say _what_?” Eddie said, but his stomach was back to plummeting. Fuck, maybe he shouldn't have said anything in the first place. Maybe this wasn't -

“You...” Richie hesitated. “You said you love me.”

“I, um. I do.” Well, so much for plausible deniability.

Richie's mouth fell open, laughably similar to Eddie's expression less than a minute ago. He looked like a cartoon character: eyes wide, utter disbelief gawking down at him, one hand frozen around Eddie's wrist and the other floundering on the counter beside the orange juice carton. With his chin dripping from the juice he sputtered around before, it was a perfect goofy picture and Eddie couldn't contain his smile, fond and telling as it had to be now that he'd given up the ghost. He'd kiss him if he asked, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

“You don't,” Richie said, slow and careful.

Actually, he took that back: he wanted to deck Richie. “The hell do you mean I _don't_?” Eddie snapped. He tried to pull his wrist back but Richie held on like a leech. “I just fucking told you I do! Twice!”

“Not like - you don't mean it like _that_. Like, you know...”

“Are you a third grader? Richie, I love you _like that._ I probably have my whole life, if we're getting technical about it.” He slumped against the counter as he rested his elbow on the edge so Richie could keep a better grip on his arm. “I know it's not - I know it's not like you mean it, and that's fine. I just wanted to tell you. That's all.”

“What do you mean it's not...” Richie blinked, his fingers loosening on his wrist. “Is this a joke?”

“No! Why would it be a joke?”

“I don't know! Why would it... _not_ be?”

It was Eddie's turn to gape again. “Have you _met_ yourself?”

Richie huffed and finally dropped Eddie's wrist, folding his arms over his chest. “Jeez, going right for the kill.”

“I'm not joking,” Eddie repeated, feeling increasingly absurd for _having_ to do so. “Rich. I love you. Messes and dumb shirts and snoring in my ear on the couch and all. All of it. All of you.”

There was a pregnant pause before Richie's brow furrowed, as if it was starting to poke through that Eddie wasn't kidding. His cheeks were flushed dark pink, eyes darting over Eddie's face.

“Then why didn't you say anything?”

“I - well, why do you _think_ \- ”

“No, I mean...” The uncertainty bled back into Richie's expression, the same cagey look that had greeted Eddie for over a week. Eddie realized with a start that the glistening in Richie's eyes were _tears_ , not a side effect of coughing up orange juice and pulp. “I told you I loved you a week ago. On the pier.”

Eddie frowned. “Yeah. And I know you didn't mean - ”

 _“No_ , Eddie, I - ” Richie laughed, both hands clutching at his hair, which he really hoped didn't tear out any strands because Eddie rather liked his curls, matted and unruly as they were right now. “I told you I _loved you_.”

It took a humiliatingly long moment for the words to sink in. Even then, he still stared and stared, feeling like one of It's balloons, inflating and surging with warmth at a steady pace, unable to stop or he'd crash and burn.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh_.” Richie was smiling, a blinding, crooked smile he couldn't do anything but match, infectious as always.

“How - How long?” It wasn't what he meant to ask, but Eddie was having a difficult time processing anything other than _oh, oh, oh_.

“Always. Since we were kids, at least.” Richie licked his lips, his hands dropping to the juice-stained counter. “I thought - you looked so scared when I said it so I figured I fucked up.”

“I had no idea,” Eddie admitted. “I thought _I_ fucked up by making things weird. I guess I did.”

“You're always weird,” Richie said, and this time Eddie heard every note of adoration in his words for what they were.

Richie _loved him_.

“You're one to talk, dumbass,” Eddie said, unable to come up with a better response face-to-face with a teary-eyed Richie who _loved_ him, who _wanted_ him.

That earned him a snort and Eddie rounded the rest of the space between them and rested his palms on Richie's forearms. He took the sharp intake of breath as a good sign, delighting in the feel of wiry hair and flexing muscles under his hands. He ran his hands down Richie's forearms to his palms, and Richie intertwined their fingers without a second thought. Eddie swallowed a lump that rose to his throat as he gazed down at their interlocking hands.

“You getting sappy on me, Eds?” Richie mumbled. He was blinking hard when Eddie looked up, clearly trying not to cry on Eddie's faded t-shirt.

“Maybe,” Eddie said. He tugged on Richie's hands, pulling him into a kiss.

It wasn't a spark-flying, firework-inducing kiss. Their noses bumped and squashed as Richie pressed deeper into the kiss, releasing one of Eddie's hands (to which he let out an embarrassingly distraught noise) so he could cup the hair at the nape of Eddie's neck. Teeth clicked against one another before they thought to adjust and Eddie tilted his head just so and -

He withdrew, biting back a laugh at how Richie swayed closer to try and reconnect their lips already. “You taste like citrus and pulp.”

Richie chuckled. Their foreheads knocked together, gentle but firm, like Eddie was the one anchoring Richie in place, holding him up with the strength of Atlas. “Gotta wash out that morning breath somehow, baby.”

“That is _not_ what you were doing earlier." Eddie raised an eyebrow. “You like it better with pulp, don't you?”

Richie's eyes glittered. “Don't know what you're talking about.”

“That's a fucking lie, you - "

“Do you want me to kiss you again or do you want to argue about your gross orange juice?”

“Fuck you, I can do both,” Eddie grumbled, but he didn't object when Richie pulled him by the hand on the back of his neck into a second kiss, hungrier than the first, his gut fluttering and heating up as Eddie tightened his grip on Richie's hand and let his teeth tug at Richie's lower lip. He didn't bother hiding his smile, Richie's grin just as wide against his, and he slid his other hand into Richie's wild bedhead like he'd wanted for so long, feeling like he'd won a million dollars. 

Not that he needed a million dollars. Why would he even _want_ a million dollars when he'd already won the lottery today?

All he wanted was Richie Tozier.

And that was more than enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I do most of my scary clown nonsense screaming at my twitter [@scarletscold](https://twitter.com/scarletscold). Comments are always appreciated, and have a great day!


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